The invention relates generally to lobed connectors, and more particularly to lobed connectors in aircraft engine systems.
Aircraft maintenance is an essential component of a system in the aviation industry. With a continuing increase in air traffic and stringent requirements for commercial schedules, pressure on maintenance operations for higher on-time performance is escalating. The ease of maintaining the aircraft and aircraft reliability can lead to a significant reduction in the overall downtime. Moreover, an easier process of assembly and disassembly of components is also an important factor in facilitating easier maintenance. An improvement in these factors results in enhanced productivity.
There are innumerable hardware components that are interconnected in an aircraft engine assembly. An optimal design of a hardware component assembly that includes several connectors is essential for a high quality performance of the engine. Such a design would help in easier assembly and disassembly resulting in easier servicing.
Among the several hardware components used, brackets are essential components in an aircraft engine that connect critical hardware such as pipes, hoses and sensors to the aircraft engine. For this reason among others, a tight fitting of the brackets is highly desirable. The brackets have to be bolted tightly enough to avoid any movement due to any vibratory or mechanical forces. Typical hardware used for attaching brackets to an aircraft engine are nuts, nut plates welded to brackets, bolts and washers, all made of metal. It would be desirable to utilize plastic brackets due to their weight savings, but plastic brackets would be sensitive to the bolting torque as they could crack if over-torqued.
Therefore, it would be desirable to design a connector that addresses the aforementioned problems.